People are increasingly interacting with computers and other electronic devices in new and interesting ways. One such interaction approach involves making a detectable motion or gesture with respect to a device, which can be detected using a camera or other such element. While image recognition can be used with existing cameras to determine various types of motion, the amount of processing needed to analyze full color, high resolution images is generally very high. This can be particularly problematic for portable devices that might have limited processing capability and/or limited battery life, such that image capture and processing at all times is not practical. In many situations a device will go into a low power or “sleep” mode in order to conserve power, wherein many components of the device, including various processors, will be in a low power mode, if not off entirely. Having processors in such a low power mode can prevent the device from detecting gestures, however, which can prevent the ability to use gestures to wake the device or otherwise indicate to the device to go back into an active state.